Opportunities to Learn Provided to Preservice Elementary School Mathematics Teachers in Turkey

Abstract

This study aims to compare the perceptions of preservice elementary mathematics teachers on the experiences provided by teacher training institutions on a national and an international level. The participants in the study were 1386 preservice teachers from 21 universities in twelve regions of Turkey. The Learning Opportunities Scales developed by the TEDS-M Project were translated into Turkish by the researchers and used to collect the data. According to the results, the preservice teachers perceived that they had more opportunities to learn about mathematics pedagogy than about mathematics or general pedagogy. Furthermore, the variations between regions were most pronounced in mathematics pedagogy. Lastly, it can be inferred that there is generally a positive relationship between development level of a regions and preservice teachers’ learning opportunities.

Keywords

• Preservice mathematics teachers,opportunity to learn,school mathematics,mathematics pedagogy,general pedagogy

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